A Record Number Of People Are Representing Themselves In Court – This Is What It's Like

The waiting rooms for the courts in Birmingham’s Civil and Family Justice Centre aren’t like the ones you see on TV. There’s no grandeur or fine wooden furniture, just screwed-down chairs, stained industrial carpet, fluorescent lighting, and the constant background hum of family life. Babies breastfeed, children push toys along the floor, and toddlers gambol around, oblivious to the huge decisions being made about their future.

“It’s like the social in here, you can’t hear anything,” one man observes, sweating nervously as he waits amid the hubbub for a duty legal adviser to help him fight an eviction.

In theory anyone facing eviction or repossession is entitled to free legal advice, but in practice, according to Hawkes, many never see anyone. “You can ask for [a legal adviser from] Citizens Advice but it can be a three-hour wait in Walsall and people go in unrepresented… I’m normally in Wolverhampton and at the moment they’ve only got one Citizens Advice person for Wolverhampton and Dudley, so depending on which one she’s in, there’s no Citizens Advice in the other one.”

He adds: “The judges can only do so much. The judges try and go behind the law to help but then you get the big organisations with money appealing it until they get the decision they want.”

https://www.buzzfeed.com/emilydugan/a-record-number-of-people-are-representing-themselves-in?utm_term=.phwRz6XvvQ#.kj8yn4Kmmp